The South-East Area is made up of 11 clubs: Arklow, Carlow, Enniscorthy, Gorey, Kilkenny, New Ross, Normans, Rathdrum, Tullow, Wexford and Wicklow.
The clubs are divided amongst four of the five qualifying divisions of the Leinster League: Enniscorthy, Gorey and Wicklow play in Division 1A, Tullow and Kilkenny in Division 1B, Carlow and New Ross in 2A and Wexford and Arklow in 2B.
Rathdrum play in Division 4 in the Metro League and Normans, the newest club in the South-East, play in Division 11 in the Metro League.
The South-East has two leagues at J1 and J2, and each of those are split into two groups with the winner of each group playing each other in a final for the J1 or J2 Cup.
The Southeast competition starts in late August/early September before the Leinster League and gives the teams much needed match time ahead of their competitions after the long summer break.
The J1 competition got off to a flying start this season in the South-East.
In Group 1, Enniscorthy and Gorey have both proven their strength putting up at least 50 points against their opponents in their first two matches and are both at the top of the group at 10 points each.
It was a nail-biting match on 4th November when they met up to decide the winner of Group 1. It was a very close match which ended 24-22 in Enniscorthy’s favour. The final group standings saw Enniscorthy lead the way on 14 points, Gorey in second on 11 points, New Ross third on five and Wexford on two points. As a result Enniscorthy advanced to the final.
In Group 2 Kilkenny and Tullow dominated the group games, and unfortunately with some of the other teams suffering scheduling clashes a number of the games could not be played this year. At the end of the group stage Kilkenny were on 18 points, both Tullow and Carlow were on 10 points, and Wicklow and Arklow with no points.
Kilkenny therefore met Enniscorthy in the J1 South-East Final on 30th December with ‘Scorthy coming out on top, winning the game 20-10.
Many thanks to Liam Walsh and Tony Walsh for their management of the South-East fixtures and best of luck to all for the rest of the domestic season.
